Murder at the Lighthouse: An Exham on Sea Cosy Mystery (Exham on Sea Cosy Crime Mysteries Book 1) (9 page)

The huge, airy kitchen was clean and, unlike Guy himself, at the cutting edge of modern design. Libby flicked her gaze round the room, finding no sign of a wife or children among the uncompromising shine of black granite and glassy smooth white paint. She shook her head. “I’m driving, but I’d love a coffee.”

“Ah. Good choice.” A wannabe barista? Guy clattered around the huge, gleaming chrome of the coffee machine with milk jugs and coffee. Libby hid a smile. Whatever had happened to Kenco and hot water?

The coffee, when it arrived at last, was perfect. “So, you found Susie on the beach. That’s sad. Not quite the dramatic end I’d expect of her. She’d have preferred something outrageous, like a mistimed bungee jump.” When he smiled, he showed beautiful white teeth. They must be the result of the band’s success in America. “The drink, was it?”

There was no reason to hide the truth. “In fact, she had been drinking, but it looks more like murder.”

That caught the man’s attention. He blinked. “Seriously?”

Libby pressed on, glad to have dented his calm surface. Now, maybe he’d forget any prepared speeches. “There are a few suspects. I imagine the police will visit you, soon.”

A flash of consciousness, a widening of the eyes, told Libby she’d hit a nerve. He glanced around the kitchen, and she realised what had seemed odd about him. His gaze vague, eyes dark, behaviour too casual. The man was stoned. Libby wondered where he kept the drugs. “Excuse me.” He stepped outside the kitchen, into the hall, and called up the stairs. “Alvin?”

“Yeah. What is it?” A younger man, in his twenties, hair longer, mussed up, sleeveless t-shirt showing muscled arms, leaned over the banisters.

“Clean things up, will you?”

The younger man frowned, puzzled for a moment, then his brow cleared. “Right. OK.”

Libby gulped down the coffee. She had to get her questions out before he cut their conversation short. He’d want time to clear the house of incriminating drug paraphernalia. “I just wanted to find out about Susie. What happened after all those albums, when she came back to Exham, and why? Those sorts of things.”

He shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Didn’t know she was here. The band broke up, years ago, and we all lost touch. We made a bit of money. I had enough to buy this place.” He looked around the kitchen, beaming. “Bought a house for my mother, as well. She’s in a care home, now, but she had a good few years.”

“What about Susie’s marriage?”

The smile faded. He shrugged. “Usual showbiz thing. Mickey found a newer, younger model. You know: longer legs, blonder hair. Anyway, Susie lost her spark when…”

He stopped, licked his lips and shot a sideways glance at Libby. She let the pause go on as she rinsed her cup and dried it, but Guy showed no sign of telling her any more details. She’d have to prompt. “OK. I know about the little girl that died. Annie.”

“Annie Rose, yeah. Cute little thing.” The lines on Guy’s face softened. Libby glimpsed a warmer, kinder man somewhere under the surface. “Broke Susie’s heart when little Annie died.”

“And Mickey’s too?”

“What? Oh, yeah, of course. He was upset. We all were. That’s when Susie said she couldn’t go on. We tried to talk her out of it, but who could blame her? Something like that, cuts you right up. She left LA, went up north, heading for Canada. She had some sort of connections there; distant family, or something. She was a bit vague.”

“Has she been in touch?”

“Nope. Clean break. I came back to Bath, took an OU course in computing.”

Libby laughed aloud. “Computing? After life in a band?”

He pushed his glasses up again. “Well, I’d always done the techie stuff. I played violin a bit, sure, but I’d rather tinker with the sound system.” He shrugged again. “Not really cut out for travelling. It was good to get off the road and settle down.”

“Apart from the drugs.”

He shuffled his feet. “Just weed and occasional coke at weekends. Nothing heavy.”

“Anything else you can tell me about Susie?”

“She was a nice kid. If I’d known she was in England I’d have got in touch.”

Alvin shambled into the kitchen, scratching at an unshaven chin, and Libby beat a retreat. Guy seemed to know as little about Susie as her old school mates in Exham. It was as though she’d been a ghost, passing through people’s lives.

One question above all others hammered in Libby’s head. What on earth had Susie been doing in Exham after all those years away?

James

Libby fiddled with the satnav, planning the route to Weldon, on the outskirts of Bristol, well aware that someone, either Guy or Alvin, watched from a window. They wanted to make sure she’d left the area. She revved the engine and wound down the window, waving with enthusiasm. That would give them something to think about.

The route to James Sutcliffe’s home took Libby down a series of ever more winding, narrow roads. She stopped to check her iPhone. Surely no one lived down this tiny, overgrown lane, hedges high on either side?

No signal. Should she give up, reverse back and go home? A horn blared and Libby twisted in her seat. She flinched. A monster tractor filled the whole of the rear window. The engine ground to a halt at the last moment, inches away.

The driver dragged off a pair of headphones, swung down from the cab, and rolled across to her window. A knitted jumper of indeterminate colour lay, unravelling, over his paunch. His head, stubbly and weathered, barely reached above the window. He shoved a ruddy, belligerent face close to the glass. “Where you off to, then?

He’d left Libby no space to open the Citroen’s door. Trapped and furious, she lowered the window, and used her iciest voice. “What business is it of yours?”

“If you’re on the way to Ross, you need to go back and turn right onto the main road. And don’t use the Satnav.”

“How can I go back with your tractor practically in my back seat? Anyway,” she remembered why she was here. “I’m looking for James Sutcliffe. I think he lives nearby.”

“Ah.” The eyes narrowed. “Huh. Plenty like you come up here, on the way to Ross. No more sense than the day they’re born. Buy an expensive Satnav, throw away perfectly good maps and get lost here, in my lane. You’re going nowhere this way, let me tell you.”

Libby picked out information from an apparently well-practised rant. “Your lane? You must be Mr Sutcliffe.”

“So, who wants me?” Must they have the conversation here? Libby peered ahead, but she couldn’t see round the corner. The cultured voice of the satnav recovered and broke in, insisting that in one hundred yards she would reach her destination.

Libby pulled out the connection. “I want to ask about Susie Bennett.”

“Thought so.” James Sutcliffe was triumphant. The colour in his cheeks, previously the sort of dull pink a kind observer would describe as a healthy, open air glow, darkened to purple. Was he about to have a stroke? At least that would stop him blowing Libby’s head off with a shotgun. “Just get off my land, woman. I’ve had enough of journalists, nosing into my business.”

“No, no, I’m not a journalist.” The squeak in Libby’s voice was less than convincing.

“Who says so?” The man had a good point. It was one thing to prove you were something: journalists carried ID cards, didn’t they, like police officers? Much harder to prove you were nothing of the sort, just a normal person. Not that Libby felt very normal, given the events of the past few days.

She slapped on what she hoped was a non-journalistic smile, aiming for a mix of seriousness and reason. “Anyway, even if I was from a newspaper, I can’t go back until you move your tractor.”

Sutcliffe growled. “Get yourself up to the yard.” He stomped back to the tractor.

The vast front end was only inches from her car. Libby feared for the newly repaired Citroen. She clashed gears and cursed under her breath. The car lurched further up the lane, finally rounding the corner to rest on a cobbled farmyard.

Mud, an inch thick, covered uneven cobbles. Libby groaned. She’d chosen her shoes with care: elegant red patent with kitten heels and elaborate holes cut into the sides. Wholly appropriate for the refined ambience of Georgian Bath, they were unlikely to survive an encounter with farmyard muck. The temptation to wheel round and disappear back up the lane was almost overwhelming.

Holding the door for support, feet slithering, she edged out of the car. “Mr Sutcliffe, I’m honestly not from the media. I’ve just been talking to Guy. Guy Miles.” The farmer frowned, recognising the name. Libby held out her phone. “Ring him, if you like.”

Libby had never heard anyone harrumph before, but that was what Sutcliffe did. He brushed past the outstretched phone. “Better come in, then.”

She ducked under a low doorway that opened into a huge kitchen. Mud from the yard had infiltrated, using the convenient transport of Sutcliffe’s boots, through the ill-fitting door. It carpeted the otherwise bare, flagstone floor of a rustic room, apparently undecorated since the 1950s. Rickety orange boxes, stacked underneath and to the side of a huge, pine table, teetered and trembled. Libby caught a glimpse of greaseproof paper and a logo, showing a goat’s head. Sutcliffe, proving himself to be no more of a talker indoors than in the lane, uttered one word. “Cheese.”

Cheese

“Dairy’s over there.” He pointed through the window. To be sure, behind the run-down farmhouse nestled a contrasting complex of neat brick buildings, doors and windows smart with red paint, enclosing a small yard lined with pristine paving stones. In the distance, a herd of goats tugged up mouthfuls of grass in a paddock, as though on a mission. “Jack runs the business, now.”

The unexpected burst of information brought Libby back to the filthy kitchen. Could that be pride, in the farmer’s voice? “Jack?” She guessed. “Your son?”

“Ah. Lives over yonder with that fancy wife of his.” Sutcliffe’s ruddy face had calmed. Social relations had somehow been restored. The farmer gestured towards a battered brown kettle. “Tea?”

“Yes, please. Let me get the cups.” Many more of these visits and she’d float away on a tide of tea and coffee. She pulled mugs from the wobbling pile on the draining board and seized the opportunity to inspect them for grime. She’d seen worse.

Sutcliffe fiddled with kettle and tea caddy. Libby coughed. “Susie Bennett. You were in the band, with her and Guy, isn’t that right?”

“Ah.” Sutcliffe kept his back turned.

“I found her body.”

He stopped, kettle poised, inches above an ancient, cracked teapot. His words were almost inaudible. “Did you now? All alone on the beach?”

The bluster drained away from the red face, leaving it crumpled, like a crushed eggshell. Libby took the kettle, pouring hot water into the pot, giving the farmer time to blow a loud nasal blast on a grubby handkerchief. “Little Susie. Who’d have thought it?”

The door opened and a younger, taller, cleaner version of James Sutcliffe strode in. Any hope the son would prove more welcoming than his father evaporated. He threw a cursory glance at Libby. “What’s going on, here, Dad?”

Sutcliffe wiped his eyes. Libby assessed the distance to the door, wishing she could just leave, annoyed to have misread James Sutcliffe. The gruff exterior hid deep feelings. “I–I’m sorry.” Lost for adequate words, she sniffed a nearby bottle of milk, decided there was life left in it, and poured three cups of tea. “I came to find out more about Susie Bennett.”

“You’ve picked a bad time.” The son pulled out a wooden chair and his father sank into it. “Dad’s wife died a month ago. The news about Susie just about finished him off.”

Libby gulped. No wonder the place was such a mess. James Sutcliffe had been running on empty, trying to keep going after the tragedy. Jack Sutcliffe had said, “Dad’s wife.” She wasn’t his own mother, then.

He folded his arms. “What’s it all to do with you, anyway?”

“I found her body. On the beach, under the lighthouse. I just wanted to find out more about her. The police aren’t interested, but she’d been away for so long…”

“The lighthouse?” James Sutcliffe interrupted. “That’s where we used to do our courting, back along when we were lads. Bonfires on the beach, hanky-panky in the dunes.” Libby studied the rugged face, searching for a likeness to the youth in the photograph. Life had been hard for Susie’s old friend.

Jack opened a series of jars. He held one out. “Rich tea?”

Libby dunked one in her cup. “I just wanted to find out if anyone knew why Susie was back in England.”

The older Sutcliffe stuffed his handkerchief in a pocket, packed a biscuit into his mouth and mumbled. “Came to see my Mary.”

His son translated. “Susie wanted to see my stepmother, before she died. It was cancer. Took a long time for her to go.”

It was as simple as that: no mystery, after all. Susie had come back to visit old friends in trouble. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Sutcliffe’s son filled in the details. James married his first wife in the United States before the band broke up. The marriage didn’t last long: the first Mrs Sutcliffe had a sharp eye for business. She left her husband and young son for an aging but rich American tycoon. Susie stayed in touch when the newly divorced James brought his son, Jack, home to the UK and turned to farming.